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Monday, 5 November 2012

Angela and David: Time for an Amicable Divorce

Alphen,
Netherlands. 5 November.Tonight is Guy
Fawkes or bonfire night when the good people of England commemorate the burning
at the stake of the leader of a 1605 Catholic plot to burn down Parliament,
which to many Britons seems merely an idea that was ahead of its time.This week Chancellor Angela Merkel is due to
visit London as part of a German charm offensive to persuade PR-Meister Cameron
to support an increase in the EU budget - if there are three things that have
brought the EU low it is British ‘vision’, French ‘pragmatism’and German
‘charm’.What Cameron should be telling
Merkel is that Britain will leave the EU unless Germany ends its drive towards
further political union.

Cameron
of course will not do that.Rather,
surrounded by his group-think, europhile officials (one must be europhile to
get promoted in London) he will meekly apologise to Merkel for last week’s
outbreak of parliamentary democracy and MP’s demand for a real cut in the EU
budget. He will instead agree with the German Chancellor to delay any decision
on the budget so long as he can keep the deal from the British people...and
hope.

That
will be difficult because Britain’s departure from the EU is now nigh on inevitable,
not least because the EU seems determined to accelerate Britain’s departure. Last night it became clear that the EU’s European
Investment Bank has loaned the Ford Motor Company some €100bn (some of it
British money) to establish a factory in Turkey, a non-EU member, so that Ford
can close a factory in Britain, an EU member.Ford clearly sees no real problem with basing production outside the EU
to sell into it.Indeed, any attempt to
impose trade sanctions on a departing Britain would be illegal under World Trade
Organisation rules, which is precisely why Ford can use British money via the
European Investment Bank to shift production from Southamption to Turkey.

Germany
is the prime architect of Britain’s pending departure from the EU because
Berlin is intent on changing the rules of the EU game in its favour.It is a crisis-driven power game the full
extent of which will only become apparent after the September 2013 German
federal elections when a newly re-elected Merkel will then and only then the German
people the enormous political and financial cost of the Eurozone crisis.

At
that point today’s phoney war will end and Europe will come to dominate British
politics in the run-up to the 2015 British general election.Indeed, battle-lines are already being drawn with
Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg and his “Little Britain” followers (which by
the way includes much of the Labour Party and some in the Conservative Party)
who believe one of the world’s leading economic and military powers could not
survive outside the EU and the massive bulk of the British people who now
believe Britain can and should go.

The
facts speak for themselves.Today the
Centre for Economic and Business Reform said Britain will enjoy the strongest growth
of any major European economy over the next two years.The percentage of British trade going to the
EU is dropping fast from near fifty percent to around forty percent with the
rest of the EU selling some €55bn more of goods and services to Britain than
Britain sells to the EU, which suggests the EU needs Britain far more than
Britain needs the EU.Indeed, the huge
transfers of British taxpayers’ money the EU demands is little more than a tax
on the British people for no demonstrable benefit and even less influence
because the link between such transfers and boosting the single market has now
been broken.Instead the cost of
regulation that Brussels imposes on Britain has become one of the main breaks
on economic recovery.

The
irony is that tensions between a globalising Britain and the Eurosphere would
have been rising even in the absence of the crisis.Britain's future will depend far more on growing world economies than a doomed-to-be sclerotic Eurozone. British trade with the emerging markets is
growing year-on-year in double-digit figures. It is perhaps no coincidence that
Cameron is today visiting the booming Gulf States which suggests the PR-Meister
may have an alternative strategy up his sleeve (do not hold your breath).There are some surprising boom areas in the
British economy such as the establishment of English law as the legal framework
for global contract law.

Therefore,
if Cameron has any political sense he will politely tell Chancellor Merkel the
truth at this week’s meeting; there is no place for Britain in her vision for
Europe and no amount of ‘charm’ can change that.She is a sensible woman and will of course
understand the implications and she will also see benefits from an amicable
divorce that would separate Britain’s political destiny from resolution of the
Eurozone crisis.If not David Cameron
might soon find that he too joins Guy Fawkes atop a political bonfire of his
own making.

About Me

Julian Lindley-French is Senior Fellow of the Institute of Statecraft, Director of Europa Analytica & Distinguished Visiting Research Fellow, National Defense University, Washington DC. An internationally-recognised strategic analyst, advisor and author he was formerly Eisenhower Professor of Defence Strategy at the Netherlands Defence Academy,and Special Professor of Strategic Studies at the University of Leiden. He is a Fellow of Respublica in London, and a member of the Strategic Advisory Group of the Atlantic Council of the United States in Washington.
Latest books: The Oxford Handbook on War 2014 (Paperback) (2014; 709 pages). (Oxford: Oxford University Press) & "Little Britain? Twenty-First Strategy for a Middling European Power". (www.amazon.com)
The Friendly-Clinch Health Warning: The views contained herein are entirely my own and do not necessarily reflect those of any institution.